In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Too familiar

Most of the rank and file were devout, self-denying, and upright, but a crust of politically covetous, worldly, and cynical prelates had weakened and degraded the dignity and influence of organised Christianity.

Thus Winston Churchill, in his History of the English-Speaking Peoples, on the state of the Catholic Church in France on the eve of the Revolution.

But it's also a pretty good description of the Catholic Church in America, don't you think? Though much demoralized and often misled, the laity are still often surprisingly devout; but the Weaklands and Lynches and Laws and Mahonys and Gumbletons have indeed weakened and degraded the influence that the Catholic Church might have brought to bear on the rotten culture around us.